Shadow of a Ghost
by Rhino7
Summary: She could have wanted a million things, but everything she wanted revolved around the one thing she truly needed. Him. ?x? Set postKHII.


**Shadow of a Ghost**

**By Rhino7**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts, its characters or storyline. This little ditty is mine. This is the first time I've written anything like this, so please forgive any awkward moments. I purposely avoided names. Sorta like a little game for you to figure out who these people are. They ARE characters from the Kingdom Hearts franchise. I'm not sure what the inspiration for this piece was…I just kinda started plucking at the keyboard…Kind reviews and constructive criticism always welcome and appreciated!**

**..:--X--:..**

It would be dawn soon.

She stood by the window, eyes lax and unfocused. Her arms were locked against the sill, her hands taut and her fingers gripping the wood. Rivulets of morning dew were setting on the glass, stitching a web of moisture over the pane. It obscured her view of the sunrise.

The horizon was a dull colored mass in the distance. The previous night's storm had sapped the heat from the ground, causing the newly fallen rain to form a thick haze of fog that was now rising with the sun. All was blue and black and gray and dull. The dawn lacked the strength to push any vibrant, living colors past the suffering fog.

Maybe he was the sun, trying to fight through the layers of fog surrounding her and discover her unguarded, bare, and raw.

Exhaling heavily, she dipped her head between her shoulders, her hair spilling across her neck, reacting to the permeable humidity of the air. Squinting slightly, she lifted her head and raised her hands, flipping the locking clasp on the window. She pushed the panes outward, letting the cool morning air spill through the gossamer curtains. The breeze reached in and caressed her face.

She let her eyes slide closed and inhaled. She could smell the salt from the nearby ocean, but she could also smell the crisp musk of the trees in the closer woods. This was a mistake. She shouldn't have come back here. Not after…after.

The door to the small room groaned as the knob turned. Before the door opened, she knew the hand that was attached to the knob. She knew who the hand belonged to. She was terrified. At the same time, a nauseas, gut wrenching longing tightened in her core, winding through her muscles and grappling at her nerves with a vengeance.

Determined not to let him see how he affected her, she straightened and turned from the window, facing him. The dim glow of daybreak filtered through the thin curtains, descending to flow across the tiled floor and draw pause at the corner of the room by the door, effectively leaving him in the shadows.

She could still see him. All too clearly could she make him out.

"You're hiding." He said after a moment.

He covered the tremble in his voice like a trained soldier. He felt anything but like a soldier at the moment. She almost glowed against the soft light from the window. The weakest rays from the sky had to be drawn to her soft, fair skin, only to be swallowed instead by her eyes. Those pools of endless emotion set in her beautiful face.

She wanted to reply tersely. No I'm not. Mind your own business. Leave me alone. I shouldn't be here. She couldn't lie to him though. Maybe she could have at first, but things had changed. He could see her now, truly see her, and she was terrified of what she was afraid he saw.

"Not very well." She managed, covering the tremble in her voice like a trained soldier.

She felt like anything but a soldier around him. He was studying her with narrow, soft eyes. Soft. A tight laugh built up in her chest. Soft was never a word she would have associated with this man. His normally taut, rigid posture seemed to have unraveled in the span of his opening the door to facing her now.

"Why?" He asked quietly, unaccusing, unassuming.

She looked so defensively helpless. He could almost see her walls cracking, her guard crumbling. He didn't want to watch her implode. Neither did he want to see her recluse into herself as she had been lately. The damaged, pleading look blatantly stretched across her face stole some of the strength from his knees. Before her eyes could drive him to hands and knees, she blinked and turned her head slightly away from him.

"Don't." Her voice was hoarse, close to breaking.

She sounded so tired, weary, and worn; it took every ounce of self control in him not to reach out for her. To hold her and just touch her, but doing that would break every unspoken rule they'd maintained for this long. He had to settle for taking a concerned step toward her.

It took every fiber of her being not to flinch away from his movement closer to her. It also took an extra dose of strength not to lean into his nearness. Half of the room held them apart, and the room itself was small. She stifled a wince and closed her eyes, turning away from him entirely.

"Let me help you." He offered.

She shook her head once with a jerk to the right, and then more slowly to the left. No. As much as she needed help, as much as she wanted help, as much as she craved help, she could not accept his help. It would be like two steps forward and six steps back. With her back to him now, she was still unable to block from her mind the safe haven of his eyes and the ghost of warmth she knew to reside in his arms.

"You can't." She folded her arms about herself and glared at the horizon through misty eyes.

How had she come to this? She had been a fighter, strong, willful, unbreakable. She had been tested, and she had failed. Now she was sitting through the second exam, and she was failing just as swiftly. No. Her nose burned as the moisture scalded the backs of her eyes. Not like this. Not now.

"I shouldn't." He reiterated gently.

He knew full well who she needed, wanted, and craved to help her, but that someone was the reason she was like this in the first place. The other couldn't protect her, couldn't cherish her, and couldn't hold her like he could. She would have to settle for him. He could not compete with a ghost. Or a demon for that matter. But he'd be damned if he didn't try. She was worth the scars.

"Exactly." She replied.

The tender, light tone to his voice alarmed her. He was being neither seductive nor manipulative, but he might as well have ambushed her and cast a spell on her. The draw on her back was impulsive. All at once, she wanted to turn around, cross her half of the room to reach him, touch him, slap him, hold him, punch him, taste his lips, spill his blood, love him, hate him, and all of the above. It was too much for one woman to keep up with.

Like the whisper of a hummingbird's wings, he took two more steps toward her. Didn't he realize what he was putting her through? His proximity was intoxicating, and she had yet to build any immunity to him. He was like a toxin, penetrating her walls and poisoning her soul, tormenting her. He had crossed more than his share of the gap between them by now. She kept her back to him, willing him to back away, but hope lingered in the deeper chambers of her mind that he would continue to advance.

"If that's what you want." His approach hesitated as he spoke.

She trembled. He could see the goose bumps rising across her skin, despite the warmth of the room. The weak light caught in every strand of her glistening hair, dancing across the tight muscles around her bare shoulders and around her arms. The scars that marred her skin were subdued and faint in the trailing light. Pain was ever present in her stature, but there was also another feeling present, as strong and as guilty as the pain. The agony was what almost overwhelmed him. She wasn't just in pain; she was in agony.

A single, broken sob escaped her and immediately her posture released its rigid stance. She brought a hand to her face and leaned forward, catching herself on the desk beside her. He was too close, so close, too close, so…close. Instinctively, he moved closer to her. Close enough to touch. She wanted to lift a hand, wave him away, shout at him to leave. She found herself incapable and managed only a half stifled gasp, vainly attempting to bite back the desperate tears.

He closed the gap in three long strides and brought his arms around her. Strong, firm, and unyielding. He couldn't let her slip away, not again. He did not stifle or restrain her, but stood fast against her instant thrashing. He held her closer, folding his arms close to her torso and applying enough pressure to strangle her struggles. He needed her to know. He desperately needed her to be aware. He could not survive this effect she had on him again if she disappeared.

Like harmless fire smoke, she was like the curling wisps of burning air. Delicate and frail, but deadly when she surrounded him like this. He could smell her hair, feel her skin, and absorb her agony. Oh, if only he could just take that all away from her. He knew it would kill him in the process. It was no longer in his capacity to consider his own wellbeing. He chose to cast aside his own safety and immerse himself in her, wanting and needing only her. Her smile, her eyes, her laughter, and her mind. He wanted her soul. He wanted to give her his own soul. Only terror held him back. Terror of a ghost that would forever be his competition, his barricade, and her scar that reached through the skin and muscle and bone and marred only pure soul.

She was shaking her head persistently, but she was no longer struggling to fight him. Instead, she dropped her head against his arm and let the tears roll. Her knees, weak enough already, buckled under the sudden warmth of his body against her back and she found herself draped in his arms, pressed to his chest, enveloped in his arms. It was wrong. It wasn't right. Wrong. No.

"Leave me alone." Her voice said, but she could feel the blood pulsing in her ears, screaming 'don't you dare leave me'.

"I can't leave you alone." He whispered against her neck.

Finding her legs, she regained her own weight and turned slowly. He allowed enough slack in his arms to allow her to face him. Her eyes were red, and streams were carving paths down her cheeks and reaching her jaw line. Her hair was clinging to the wet spots on her jaw, and he longed to reach forward and brush her face to free her hair. That action would surely break him and then she'd just slip away, lost in the prelit dawn like a feather from a migrating bird. No.

His eyes locked on her eyes. Her internal tempest raged, but the storm's foreplay was stalled. His gaze was bewitching, triggering the deep, agonizing pull that had been gnawing at her heart since…Fresh tears welled in her eyes and she leaned her head forward. She closed her eyes as her forehead pressed against his chin. Against her better judgment, she breathed.

She inhaled the smell of his skin. There were scarce few things that aroused her more than the smell of a man's skin. Not the gritty, metallic, sweaty smell of a guy, but the real, natural, masculine scent that rushed to meet her and instantly soothed some of her ache. Wrong. She shouldn't be this close. He shouldn't be holding her like this. It was too safe, too gentle, and too right. Wrong. No.

He could feel the struggle in her bones as they shuddered under her skin. Her forehead was glazed with nervous perspiration, sticking to his chin. She smelled like sawdust and ash and gun oil and all the things a woman shouldn't smell like. No perfume, no roses, no watermelon scent. She smelled raw, untainted, and damaged. Took one to know one.

Unlocking his arms from her back, he ran his hands across the bareness of her upper arms, grasping the firm muscle and grimacing at the smooth toning of her flesh against the gnarled tips of his fingers.

"I don't want this." She murmured into his collar.

Even as she spoke, her body pressed closer to him, her arms lifting to rest just above his hips, her callused fingers tracing their way closer to his ribs, where they momentarily halted.

He shook his head, dropping his face so that his temple was pressing against her ear. "Neither do I."

She hated that this man had total control over her. She hated that he had reached into her core and gripped her entirely, embracing her in a cocoon of warmth and safety and wholeness and the ecstasy of being wanted. Every instinct in her mind screamed at her to run, to pull away and flee, to punish herself for falling so far, so hard, so soon. It was impossible now. His hair was ghosting her cheek and her nose was almost touching his shoulder.

"I'm sorry." She whispered.

He knew she wasn't speaking to him. Her words weren't for his benefit or solace. She was in pain and he couldn't cure it. Maybe he could help her deal with the agony instead. Only if she wanted him to. Only if she let him help her.

"Shh." He silently comforted her as best he could.

Like the flip of a switch, the adrenaline coursed through her blood, heating her to the core and she ran her hands farther up his chest, climbing the round of his shoulders and settling with each palm against a side of his neck. Unwillingly but desperately, she lifted her eyes. His hands stilled from rubbing along her arms, his thumbs bent into the crooks of her elbows.

The proverbial spark of electricity that shot between their eyes was painful for both of them. Each wanted to pull away, but found themselves incapable and unwilling to pull away, to blink, to breathe. She looked up and found herself blissfully numb in his eyes. He looked down and was suddenly and utterly at a loss of how to help her.

Speech was now inconsequential and an inability. This had been building for some time, but never had either felt so intensely, so fiercely, and so longingly for this moment. Why, after so much suffering, pain, and malice, could they not close the mere inches of a gap that separated them? A dozen ghosts and thousands of memories clogged the air between them, rendering an impassable wall separating them.

"What do you want?" How she managed to speak shocked her beyond shock. Her voice was brittle and she sounded impossibly frail and trepid.

The innocent, naivety of her voice clashed magnificently with the broken, jaded shade of her eyes. The contrast would have normally warranted a laugh from him, but his vocal chords had been immobilized by the sheer impact of her words and his nonverbal answer as it reverberated off the walls of his skull.

Her voice laid siege on him like a drug. He looked into her eyes, refusing to blink, for fear of opening his eyes to find her gone, one of thousands of identical dreams borne of shameless desire. No, it was deeper than just simple desire. There was no way to possibly justify an answer to her question with words. He lacked the eloquence and the self control.

His fingers traced an intricate pattern across her arms, circling her shoulders, and gracing the skin of her neck with his fingertips. Her jaw was set and fixed, her eyes searching his desperately for an answer he couldn't supply. He could not give her the answer she wanted, only the one she needed. Therefore, he placed his palms on either side of her neck, feeling her pulse throbbing against his hands. Her eyes were wide, broken, and guilty. She tilted her head, her gaze dropping from his eyes and making as if to break away from him, but something kept her locked in place.

His hands were warm and gentle at her neck, not restraining or embracing. She couldn't explain the sensations running all through her body. All she knew was that he was too close, and there was nothing she could do to fix it. There was nothing she wanted to do to fix it. That was the problem. She was on the verge of repeating her question, when he leaned forward.

She immediately tilted her head in response, unable to hold his gaze any longer as his hair brushed the side of her face. Unable to properly breathe, she could only incline her head and pray in bone deep desperation that he would finish what he started, parallel to her prayer of waking from this heavenly nightmare her guilty soul had conjured.

He did not kiss her.

His lips ghosted against hers, their noises touching as a mutual inhale accompanied the last second hesitation. She could feel his warm breath on her face and fought the heaviness of her eyelids to look up at him. The storm in his eyes sent a rush of adrenaline through her blood and roused a resurgence of emotions. They spilled through her skin, through her pores, and cloaked her in a foreign skin of longing and hesitation. Her arms, still draped over his shoulders, drew in the warmth of his back.

"I want you to forgive yourself." His lips ghosted over hers a few times as he spoke, he was so close. His eyes were closed, drinking her in.

Her body quivered in his arms, tears welling anew in her eyes. He knew it would never be that simple. He couldn't just command her to stop feeling guilty, though he felt the regret was a moot emotion in this instance. She may not ever come to grips with what was happening all around her, to her life, to her surroundings. She had been robbed of control and all that made her feel safe. All he could do was try to shelter and protect her from whatever she felt she needed protection from.

"What do you want?" He reciprocated. It was only fair she answer as well.

She pulled in her bottom lip, trying to blink away the moisture that had accumulated around the rims of her eyes. A few tears had made escape on her eyelashes, bending the lashes away from the natural curvatures around her eyes. There were a million things she wanted. She wanted the other back. She wanted this war to end. She wanted to unsee all the horror she had seen. She wanted normal back. They both knew normal would never return. This was their normal from now on, until the next era ended.

He boldly lifted a hand from her neck and trailed his fingers through her hair, the silky texture of it intoxicating. As it fell back to her shoulder, she lifted pained eyes to him. He could feel the sweat on her palms as she draped her hands against the back of his neck. Their noses were still touching.

"You." She managed in a whisper, her lips once again barely touching his, but definitely touching his lips.

She knew it sounded cliché, like something out of a bad romance movie, but it was the only answer that fit. She could have wanted a million things, but everything she wanted revolved around the one thing she truly needed. Him. Still, even after this revelation, she could not bring herself to traverse those last agonizing centimeters and claim him as hers. He was waiting, always patiently waiting, for her to get herself together, and she didn't know if she ever could.

"I'm sorry." She muttered just as faintly, with every intention of pulling away, but lacking the strength and the capacity to actually perform the act of moving away from him.

The clock bell tolled, chiming in the hour. Unconsciously, she counted the bars, tallying them in her head as she continued to drown in the pools of his eyes. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. The timid jingle at the end of the chime accentuated the half. Six thirty in the morning. Daybreak. Soon the Council would convene, and both of them had to be present for that.

"Me too." He said under his breath.

Choking on tears, she removed her hands from his neck and disengaged his arms from her shoulders. He did not resist her, and she broke eye contact. She could not look into his eyes anymore. It would surely kill her. Maybe this was how she deserved to die.

"I'm sorry." She repeated, turning jerkily away from him and lifting a hand to her mouth, stifling a sob. "I have to go." She said brokenly, staggering across the room and closing the door behind her.

As soon the latch caught the door, she collapsed against the wall, dry sobs and muted cries rendering her nearly convulsive. Cursing the hot tears rolling down her cheeks, she held her ribs and counted to five. She could only allow the pain to overwhelm her for five seconds.

One. Two. She shouldn't have come here. Three. Four. It was a mistake to come here. Five. Nothing concerning him could ever truly be called a mistake.

Breathing deeply, she straightened and fought to regain composure. Gathering her balance, she took a few shaky steps down the stretching corridor until she found her feet. Once balanced completely, she jogged the rest of the walk back to the meeting chambers.

He waited a full minute after she closed the door, still breathing in the smell of her hair and feeling her tears dry on his neck. He stared after the door, as though expecting her to come back. She wouldn't come back. She never did. She would hide, broken and vulnerable, until he found her and tried to comfort her again. Sometimes she would hide from him. Sometimes she would hide behind her own eyes.

Like fire smoke, she would envelope him all over again, burn through his shell and his shield and rip apart his soul. And he would always seek her out. And she would always leave him.

Then, like a wisp of coiling smoke from a dying fire, she would be gone, once again.


End file.
